


a path that curves around trees

by VagabondDawn



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 03:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18335660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagabondDawn/pseuds/VagabondDawn
Summary: “It’s not mokuton,” Shikako says firmly.





	a path that curves around trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MathIsMagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathIsMagic/gifts).



> Request by MathIsMagic  
> -WB: Life Energy and Sage Energy and Natural Energy and Mokuton And Other Non-Regular-Chakra Energies  
> -Having feelings about being the only Mokuton users, and being excited to meet others?  
> -Mokuton!Shikako  
> -Them comparing or thinking about how sage/life/mokuton/natural energy and stuff like. Relate to each other? Maybe some mindblowing of explaining the crossovers and differences?  
> -Or of being pleased someone Gets this Weird Thing you do, even if it’s not Exactly The Same As You.

Shikako has always been an excellent chakra sensor, too good for her own health at times. Her chakra had itched and burned as it had settled into her body. The natural energy of the world, not quite chakra but not so different either — as alike to chakra as mist was to water — was not just easy to sense but impossible to miss, choking her if she wasn't careful. 

After Gelel — after feeling _life_ and the way that things could grow if they are filled to the very brim with bright, bright energy — she gets… even better. 

She senses _more_. 

Not just chakra. Not just natural energy. Those bright sparks of stars that count as _life_ burning inside people, never fading. 

After Gelel, Shikako can feel the way she can just… do that again. Not on the same scale — that's impossible without the accumulated chakra of centuries — but scaled down, a single tree, a single flower, a single blade of grass… 

She could make them grow. 

— 

Kakashi approaches the training grounds cautiously, because he does everything cautiously. The scents on the wind tell him that Shikako is there, alone, and no one else has been around for hours. _Something_ isn't right, but he can't tell what is out of place — there are no footprints bending grass stems, no lingering chakra presences lurking in the trees but his instincts say something _isn't right_. 

Technically speaking, Shikako probably shouldn't be at the training grounds — not after collapsing in the Hokage's office and needing emergency surgery and whatever else had happened on the mission that no one can talk about — but when he sees her she isn't moving, so that really ought to qualify as light training, right? 

But it's not a kind of training that Kakashi has ever seen Shikako do before. She's sitting cross legged in the middle of a field, eyes closed as if she's just meditating or sleeping. There are no obvious signs that she's using jutsu, no handsigns, no flares of light, but... 

Around the clearing the grass has been recently cut, barely brushing over the sole of his sandals and tickling his toes. A standard training field maintenance task, along with collecting abandoned weaponry, replacing broken training logs and keeping the forest healthy. 

Around Shikako, though... there's an uneven circle of grass, growing tall so that it nearly reaches over her folded legs. The grass stems seem to waver, like there's an inconsistent breeze, like they're _unfolding_ and before his eye they gain another handspan of height. 

"Ah, Shikako-chan," he says, trying to swallow the unease. She does impossible things all the time. "Since when do you have mokuton?" 

Her eyes blink open, they look slightly dazed, but sharpen as she focuses on him. "This isn't mokuton, Kakashi-sensei," she protests, sounding slightly insulted. 

Kakashi relaxes. Not because he believes her, but because it _is_ another impossible Shikako thing, and he will take so many impossible Shikako things if it means nothing more like the horrors Tenzō had escaped from. 

"Oh?" he asks, mildly. "I thought mokuton was the legendary bloodlimit involving manipulation of wood. Maybe I'm mistaken." 

"This isn't wood," she says, as if manipulating _grass_ is any lesser feat. "And I'm not even manipulating it. I'm just… supercharging it with energy until it grows." 

Kakashi cautiously steps closer and crouches down next to her, until he can touch it. "For what purpose?" he asks. 

There's a long, slightly awkward silence. "So I can learn to manipulate it," Shikako admits. 

The grass strands feel soft and stringy, perfectly normal and perfectly natural. He tugs them lightly, but they don't feel especially strong. 

It's just… grass. 

"Hmm," he says thoughtfully, and bends two strands together until he can knot them over her foot, tying a neat little bow. "Stay right there. Don't even move at all." 

Then he vanishes in a straight shunshin towards ANBU HQ. 

— 

"Senpai," Tenzō tries again, following Wolf— no, Kakashi-senpai towards one of Konoha's low numbered training fields. They're not too far from the busy commercial district and neither place is one Tenzō frequents. When he wants to train, he does it at ANBU HQ. "What's going on?" 

He doesn't think Kakashi would have broken silence just to invite him training. That feels… too hopeful. But his senpai hasn't given him any clues either. 

It's _also_ unlikely to be murder. Probably. Kakashi-senpai doesn't exactly forgive grudges, but if he was that mad, surely it would have happened far sooner than this. 

"Ah, good," Kakashi-senpai says, entering the clearing where a genin is waiting. "You didn't move." 

The girl — a Nara — looks up at him with a dry expression. She's sitting in the middle of a strangely long patch of grass, maybe on a rock or broken training post? 

"I was training," she says. "I never intended to move in the first place." 

And the grass curled around her legs… 

Moves. Grows. 

Tenzō draws in a sharp breath. "He got another one?" he says quietly, dismayed, under his breath. He's seen senpai rip people's hearts out of their chest before — it might feel a little like this. 

Kakashi-senpai gives him a sideways look. "I don't… think so…" he says, equally quiet. "But you're the only other person who might have any idea what she's doing. So—" he makes a vague gesture towards her. 

Tenzō takes an awkward, hesitant step forward. "So, uh. Mokuton?" he says. 

The Nara girl — Shikako, that's right, her name is Shikako, she's the Jounin Commander's daughter and Kakashi-senpai's genin student — sighs and casts an irritated glance towards Kakashi-senpai. "It's _not_ mokuton," she says firmly, like she's already has this argument. 

_Good luck to her_ , Tenzō thinks, if she thinks she's going to win against senpai. 

Senpai takes out his book and pretends to be paying no attention, but he doesn't leave, which is how Tenzō knows he's paying an _extreme_ amount of attention to them both. 

"It's not," Tenzō agrees. He holds out his hand and forms a tiny protrusion of wood, barely more than a stick. "This is mokuton." 

"Oh my god!" Shikako says with something that might be _glee_ , rising out of the long grass and leaning in _too close_ to his hand. 

Tenzō is terribly, horribly aware how easy it would be to grow that stick larger, to just punch it straight through her. 

"Do that again!" she says, hands dancing in the air around his, not touching but clearly _wanting_ to. 

Tenzō obliges. "It's different — what you're doing — isn't it?" he says. He can feel the chakra running through the grass, not _quite_ like the chakra he uses for Earth Flow techniques but not so dissimilar either. It's … _more_ than the rest of the field has, and he thinks he could grab it and use it very easily. 

"Yeah," Shikako says, still peering at his hand. "I mean. It's not like I've ever seen mokuton _before_ so I was just guessing but I'm just… putting a lot of energy into the plants to get them to grow like they were going to grow anyway. I'm not making anything new, not making anything out of nothing." She bites her lip and looks at Kakashi-senpai, clearly aware he's not ignoring them like he seems. "It's like… on our first mission we encountered a ninja with Hyōton. He could just make these fantastic ice structures out of nothing. But later, in the Land of Snow — Land of Spring, I mean — we ran into ninja who could just manipulate the ice and snow like I would for an earth jutsu." 

"Still pretty powerful," Tenzō says, after a moment. "Especially in Konoha, where there are plenty of plants to manipulate." 

Shikako nods, eagerly. "Yeah. And the Hashirama trees... they're already so full of energy. I bet I could do a lot with them!" 

Tenzō has had kohai before — in ROOT, in ANBU — but no one like this, no one for _this._ He's always been unique, the only person in Konoha with this fabled and legendary bloodlimit, isolated and secluded. 

She's not the same, but maybe… maybe she's close enough. 

"Well," he says, clapping his hands together and growing a tree right out of the ground. "Let's see, shall we?" 

**Author's Note:**

> Make me a path that curves around trees  
> Of stepping stone, wood chip, and moss  
> Varying in array of colors  
> Causing one's mind to venture in thought  
> — Make Me A Garden By Sylvia Stults


End file.
